


life used to be so hard

by rattlingbones



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, No Dead Dogs, Police Officer Will Graham, Very Minor Harm to Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7823497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattlingbones/pseuds/rattlingbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail Hobbs (19, "a nice girl") meets Sheriff's Deputy Will Graham (25, "a nice boy") when she goes to stay with her grandparents in Louisiana.</p>
            </blockquote>





	life used to be so hard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashes_of_roses (KendraLuehr)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KendraLuehr/gifts).



It’s like another country, Louisiana. It was like Abigail visited her grandmama and grand-daddy in another country every summer. There was a permanent taste like hot ozone soup in the air down there and the wooden and tin and concrete and brick human structures were constantly on the verge of being conquered by the relentless green Nature.

People didn’t talk or act the same there as they did in Minnesota; people didn’t _think_ the same.

Abigail hadn’t been planning to make the trip this year but then Mimi had called one morning in late spring. Through a cell phone and a thousand miles away her grandmother had somehow managed not only to convince her to come down to Louisiana, but also to stay for two months instead of her usual two weeks. Abigail had to hand in her notice to her boss at the veterinary clinic/kennel where she worked hosing down steel cages and murmuring comfort to startled animals.

Abigail's Dad had not been pleased.

  
  
  
She had driven down in late May.

“Couldn’t you just fly?” Pawpaw had asked over the phone when she finally stopped at a Motel 6 the late, late the first night.

“I like driving,” She said. “This is like a little vacation in itself.”  
  
He’d snorted, then chuckled, then told her to watch out for herself, Abi-gator. There’s bad men who prey on women alone, Abi-gator. She should call him and Mimi everyday, twice a day, to check in. She should call her parents everyday, twice a day, too. Let ‘em know she was safe, that some faceless Other hadn’t snatched her up.  
  
(Yet.)

Abigail had hummed agreement. She had made promises of calls and caution.

Once he hung up she changed into her old bathing suit and swam laps, alone, in the motel pool until three AM.

 

  
  
Abigail had this recurring dream for the past few months:  
  
Abigail was watching a version herself--an odd sensation, like seeing herself on old home videos--soaping up a dog at the kennel. There was horribly something wrong with the dog, which the Dreaming-Abigail who was watching the Dream-Abigail sensed. Dream-Abigail was unaware.  
  
Dreaming-Abigail wanted to reach out and slap Dream-Abigail; to shout at her, to throw something, to do anything to get her to notice. Except Dream-Abigail never noticed in the dreams that the dog's eyes were human eyes, blue like hers. No matter how many times she dreamt it the dog had Abigail's eyes.

 

  
  
  
She parked in her grandparents’ driveway behind the ratty boat. She’d been counting on recognizing the driveway by the boat they kept in it, but it had been a whole year and every driveway in not-quite-Lake Charles had a boat in it, most of them kind of ratty-looking. She’d missed the house the first time she driven down the street.  
  
There was a cop car parked in the driveway to the house across the street, but otherwise the houses all looked eerily similar and the block looked exactly the same as she remembered from last summer, and every summer she can recall.

She looked at the cop car's house in the rearview mirror for a long second. It was squat and old, but well maintained. The screen of the porch was unbroken and the pale blue clapboard was weathered but not peeling. It was kind of nice. Even peaceful, in a way. The kind of place you'd be glad to see when you were wet from rain or burnt by the sun or just tired from being.

There was a flurry from her grandparents’ screened porch and Mimi appeared in her shirt-dress and frilled apron, stout and delighted and tanned as she ever was. Abigail looked away from the house across the street and went to greet her grandmother.

 

  
  
  
Mimi and Pawpaw filled her in at breakfast the day after she arrived about all the local happenings. It might have been called gossip, but it wasn’t malicious. They just seemed to believe that she ought to know everything about their neighbors and friends and their neighbor’s friends.

Their new neighbor was Will “A Nice Boy” Graham. He’s twenty-five, a sheriff’s deputy, and collects mutts in a number that is unusual even this far South.

“He’s a nice boy,” Mimi said. “Good lookin’ boy, too. More important, he’s polite. Real polite. I was worried when he moved in. I know how loud y’all millennials can get, but he’s real quiet, even with all them dogs he rescues.”

“Takes good care of his pack.” Pawpaw nicked the untouched sausage patties off Abigail’s plate. “I think he’s got a touch of the Aspergers.” It sounds like ass-burgers when he says it. “They talked about that on TV. Not real sociable, but he’s polite, and he loves those dogs.”

Then they told her about Jocelyn-down-the-street who was having trouble with her boy, Shawn, and how it was a shame, a real shame, he was acting the fool like he did. Sheriff’s Deputy Will Graham was quite forgotten and later, Abigail thought about what her neighbors in Minnesota knew of her.

Abigail Hobbs: not very sociable, loves animals. A Nice Girl.

 

 

Abigail didn’t actually see Will Graham until almost the end of her first week in Louisiana.  
  
She was weeding daisies out of Mimi’s beloved lantana patch early in the morning, trying to finish before the sun burnt her skin too badly. It was never not hot and sticky outside in June.  
  
Will Graham came out of his house. And, _goddamn_ , he was good-looking man. Brown curls and delicate features. Already golden-tanned from the summer sunshine. He was on the short side for a man but still taller than Abigail. His uniform showed off that he had the kind of muscle that came not from deliberate effort at the gym but from work.  
  
Abigail imagined Marissa Schurr for a second, sly and cheerful as ever, teasing Abigail the way she had whenever they had seen an attractive guy by fanning her face and drawling: _‘what a man, what a man, what a mighty fine man’_. It had been a long time since Abigail had spoken with Marissa.  
  
Behind Will Graham, dogs pressed their noses against the porch screen softly whining protest against his leaving. He shushed them, said something to them Abigail couldn’t hear from across the street. Then he turned and came down the steps.  
  
Their eyes met.  
  
Will Graham (sheriff's deputy, nice boy, dogs) looked down and away. His lips parted and his eyelashes actually fluttered like he was some sort of silent film ingenue. Then he got in his cop car and drove off.  
  
And Abigail thought, "Oh."

 

 

She tried to be subtle about interrogating her grandparents over supper. Really, she did. And Pawpaw didn't actually notice (bless him).  
  
Mimi, on the other hand, fixed Abigail with her most pointed of looks. She cornered Abigail after supper, once Pawpaw went out back to chain smoke and while Abigail was elbow-deep in the washing up, and thus unable to flee.  
  
"Well, Abigail Louise," She said. "I do hope you're giving some thought as to what you're gettin' yourself into."  
  
Abigail had to resort to using her fingernails to scratch a particularly persistent bit of scum off the skillet. "I'm just asking questions, is all."  
  
"Mmhm."  
  
Mimi wasn't fooled. "Just don't you go taking advantage of that boy, you hear? He's a good boy. And I know you're a good girl, but you could hurt him without meanin' to."  
  
And Abigail kind of wanted to laugh, because--yeah, people really did think differently here. It hadn't occurred to Mimi that Abigail might be the one taken advantage of; that Abigail was nineteen and just quit her minimum wage job and Will Graham was mid-twenties and an officer of the law. Mimi knew better.  
  
Mimi continued. "And I know you've got dreams and such that don't involve stickin' around here. Weren't you going to go to one of the colleges in Minnesota?"  
  
"Oh, you know." Abigail kept scrubbing and tried not to let her voice take that too-dull tone it got whenever someone mentioned college. "It's like I already told you. College is expensive. I've had to stay home a little bit longer and work. Saving money. I'm gonna apply in the fall. Maybe the spring."  
  
Dad had looked so relieved when she told her parents she'd decided to stay a little while longer--like a great weight had been lifted. Just a little while longer. And when she had landed the job at the vet's office, the dogs began to looking like does from the corner of her eye...  
  
Mimi sighed. "Oh, honey." Then, "Don't you bite off more than you can stomach."  
  
Abigail had wondered before how on Earth her insipid, oblivious Mom could come from these people, from this place, and still be the way she was. She wondered it again as Mimi went to join Pawpaw on the back porch.

 

 

  
Abigail was still working out an infiltration plan when fate, in the form of neighbor-Jocelyn's-fool-son-Shawn, intervened.  
  
"Ma, I'm tellin' you, that dog came out of fuckin' nowhere," fool-son-Shawn was throwing his arms around to make his point. " _It_ attacked _me_."  
  
Neighbor-Jocelyn glared at him. "You _moron_. You hit a dog! You hit a _cop's dog_!"  
  
Shawn had, apparently, been attempting to stave off the grass from his seat on a ride-on mower when one of Will Graham's dogs had broken free of the backyard and proceeded to attack the mower. Luckily, it had come at the machine from such an angle that it was mostly unharmed but for a nasty cut and a large bump on its head. Shawn had run to Jocelyn, who had come and gotten Mimi, who had summoned Abigail to make sure the dog wasn't in immediate danger. Will Graham wasn't yet aware of his dog's bid for freedom, or of its encounter with the lawnmower.  
  
"I think she'll be okay," Abigail said, scritching under the dog's chin in a way that made her tongue poke out and tail wag. "But I'll carry her over to Officer Graham's and let him know."

By the time she got to the door of Will Graham's porch with the dog balanced on one hip, toddler-style, Mimi and Jocelyn and Shawn had disappeared indoors. 

She didn't come onto the porch, nor did she have to knock. Will's dogs began barking at her loudly enough that he came out onto the porch.

Will seemed bewildered by the dogs' behavior for a moment, then he caught sight of Abigail. 

"Oh," he said. "Oh. It's you."

Abigail wasn't sure what he meant by that. "Hi, my name's Abigail. My grandparents are your neighbors."

  
"I'm Will. Will Graham," He said, and then: "Is that my...?"  
  
"Dog? Yeah, I think so. She tried to fight Jocelyn's lawnmower, the big one, and got a little banged up."  
  
Will was through the door and by her side in a second. The dog's tail was going a mile a minute, even though the scratch on her face was still oozing a bit.  
  
"She seems alright," Abigail tried to reassure him. "Head wounds always look like they're bleeding too much. But she wasn't hurt real bad." She shifted the dog over to Will's arms. Their skin brushed in the shuffle of the dog, and Abigail was close enough to smell him. Sweat, and oil, and verbena--scents that should be strong and were somehow a little delicate on him.  
  
" _Shit_." Will said under his breath. He tried to get the dog to hold her head still so he could examine the injury, but the dog wasn't having any of that. Then Will seemed to realize he had cursed in front of Abigail and his cheeks pinked. "Sorry. Uh."  
  
"I was thinking," Abigail said. "I could drive y'all over to the animal hospital to get her checked out. That way you can hold her in the car."  
  
Abigail was fairly certain there was nothing wrong with the dog that rest and possibly a little obedience training couldn't cure. But she liked dogs, and she was also fairly certain that given the chance she'd like Will even more.  
  
Will Graham met her eyes and smiled at her then. Startled, grateful. Clear. "Yeah," He said. "Yeah, okay. Thank you."

 

  
Abigail drove Will and his dog over to the emergency clinic in Lake Charles proper because it was the closest one still open.  
  
"What's her name?" She asked. The car had been conspicuously silent for the ten minutes they had been in it. She hated all the local radio stations, and Will wasn't much of a talker, apparently. That was fine. Neither was Abigail.  
  
"She doesn't have one, yet," Will answered. "Just found her last week."  
  
Abigail nodded, unsure how to continue. Not knowing what to say next was an odd feeling for her. Usually she could come up with ten possible things to say if she had to. She was well-practiced in meaningful conversation meant to seem meaningless. But for some reason she was certain Will Graham could have cut right through anything she tried to come up with. If he wanted to.  
  
Luckily for Abigail, Will continued the conversation for her. "Usually I can come up with a name quickly. But hers has...eluded me." She caught a glimpse of wry smile from him in the passenger mirror. More of a grimace, really.  
  
Abigail laughed a little. Not _at_ him, but the perfect name for the dog seemed fairly obvious. "You ought to name her Donna," Abigail said.  
  
Will was curious. "Why Donna?"  
  
"Donna, after Don Quixote," Abigail said. "Tilting at windmills. Or lawnmowers, in this case."  
  
Will laughed. Abigail beamed.

 

  
Donna, as the dog came to be named, was indeed perfectly fine. Will still thanked Abigail profusely when she dropped them back off in front of his house.  
  
Abigail went back to her grandparent's house where Mimi had left a plate of dinner covered in foil on the counter next to a note that read _Missed a call from your Daddy_ and _Be smart_. Abigail threw the note away and put the plate in the refrigerator. Her stomach felt hollow but she wasn't hungry.

 

  
She baked dog treats for his pack and brought them over one evening.  
  
"Used to work at a little vet slash kennel in Minnesota," She told Will as he had each of his pack wait politely for their treat. "Taught me how to make these. They're mostly just chicken liver and cornmeal but the dogs all loved 'em."  
  
"Thanks," He said. "That's kind of you."  
  
"How's Donna?"  
  
The dog in question woofed and bounced when she heard her name, desperate for her treat. Will obliged.  
  
"Fine. Cut's closing nicely."  
  
"Good. I'm glad."

They were quiet for some minutes then as they pet his dogs. Abigail liked it, liked it so much, being in that house. Will's house. He didn't make all the furniture and 'art' the way her father did. Didn't have weird modern minimalist design like Marissa Schurr's parents. Didn't have tchotchkes and lace everywhere like her grandparents. It was just a house: plain on the outside, plain on the inside. But it was the first house Abigail had ever been in that she thought, this, this is what I would want if I could choose.

Why couldn't she?

"You like drum?" He startled her.

Abigail felt her eyebrows pull together. "What, like, music?"

He smirked, just a little. It was kind of hot. She also kind of wanted to smack it off his face. 

"Nah, like drum fish. I'm going fishing tomorrow, and I thought, if you liked drum I could bring you some. Say 'thanks'."

"You already said thanks," Abigail said.

He shrugged and looked away. "Well."

"I don't understand how anyone around here fishes for fun." She said. "Aren't you scared of alligators?"

Will looked back at her then, considering. "Alligators don't like to hunt humans, usually, unless the opportunity arises. They're patient, and they enjoy stalking their prey. But they usually don't stalk something they think might fight back."

Abigail almost shivered. She thought of yellow eyes just above dark, dark water. She thought about her father. 

"Plus," Will continued. "Lot of people 'round here like hunting the alligators. But I prefer fish."

Abigail thought, _How easy would it be?_ Her father, down here one weekend at the end of summer. All she had to do was make an opportunity arise.

Why couldn't she?

"You could take me with you," She made her counter offer. "Not as a thank you."

Will froze. She could almost see all the different possible things he might say to that. Questions and objections and arguments. But he wanted to take her with him. He wanted to take her out on that boat with him. She could tell.

"I want to," Abigail told him. "I want to go with you."

 

  
  
So Will took her fishing, which--  
  
It wasn’t like hunting with her father, she supposed. Maybe if you looked at it from an outside perspective it was.  
  
They left when it was still and dark outside. The bugs were cacophonous but after a few weeks Abigail had learned to filter out their sound because it never went away. Will and her drove in his truck with his boat attached to back a half hour out to some ramshackle little jetty on the Calcascieu River.  
  
“Best place in the parish for fishing,” Will said.  
  
Abigail grinned at him. “Bet you I can catch more than you.”  
  
Will smiled back, then. It wasn’t a huge smile, but it reached his eyes, and he smiled the whole morning they were out there and the drive back to his house in the afternoon. He smiled when he showed her how to gut and clean the fish and they cooked them in the kitchen and ate them right out of the skillet. He didn’t stop smiling, and Abigail’s not entirely sure, but she’s pretty sure she didn’t stop smiling, either.

 

 

  
It was like this:  
  
Abigail Hobbs was always, _always_ a survivor.  
  
She hadn’t realized that meant she might want to actually live.

**Author's Note:**

> I grew up in Louisiana so I was really tickled to see your LA cop/neighbor AU prompt! I really hope you enjoy this.
> 
> Title is from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young "Our House"


End file.
